Vol. 15—1961 - NorthEastern Weed Science Society

6..
THEMETABOLISM
0F C~TAIN BER~ICIDES.BJ
BIOLOGICALACTIVITyl,2,4
fLANTS-~AFACT
V. D. Freed,·M. Montgomery and Mabel Kief)
R IN.THEIR
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Since ancient times, man has sought chemicals to abate d sease, the disease
of his livestock and to control pests that exact their toll 0 his food crops.
The rise of exact scientific studies in chemistry and biolog permitted man, to
turn his attention to the effect of these chemicals on -thea anismexposed to
them. It was early noted in animal experiments that ehe ani 'Is Were able to
tolerate a prolonged exposure to low concentrations of many of the organic chemicals
tested. In attempting to discover the reason for this tler~ce, it was
found that the animals were able to detoxify or metabolize t se drugs (4). The
metabolism was found to take many forma in ani~als· ranging al thewliy from the
formation of a simple conjugate to a complete metab~lism of t e administered drug.
It was found that the compound administered might be conjugat d to simple amino
acids, sugars or proteins, it may be coupled with sulfur-cont ining amino acids
to form .the mercapturic acids; the compound might be hydroxyl ted, viaox1dation
or the compound might be oxidized completely to carbon dtoxid . and water (4).
Very often a combination of tbese.detoxificationmechanisms re found~ Subsequently,
it was shown that microorganisms, insects and other lower animals possess
the same ability to metabolize organic substances. . It is n .knoWn that microorganisms
particularly have a wide range of abilities to deal with organic' -'
materials iRtroduced into their environment.
Although it may have been surmised that plants possess t e,same ability to
metabolize drugs, it remained for the workers at Boyce Thomps n Institute (15,16)
17) to demons.trate J:his phenomena. Thase workers studying· t effects of various
fumigants on plants discovered that ethylene chlorohydrin was rapidly converted
to a glycoside. Subsequently, other compounds were shown to e metabolized by
plants, such as the dinitrophenols, where it was demonstrate that plants possess
the ability to reduce one of the nitTa groups of the dinitro enol.
The introduction of growth-regulating eompounds for wee control and for
horticultural ,urposes greatly stimulated: interest in the met bolismof chemicals
by plants. The theory has been advanced that the mode of act on of certain of
these compounds may depend upon the metabolic conversion to active form (14)
18). That such may be the case in' certain· instances was d strated by the
workers at Boyce Thompson Institute who showed in 1947 that e omega phenoxy
alkyl carboxylic acids could be converted by beta oxidation 2)4-D (21). There
remained for Wain (22) and his colleagues (2) in England, h ver, to make
practical application of this discovery.
1. Based in part on manuscripts submitted to ~eeds.
2. Supported in part by a grant from Geigy i~ricultural Che cals, NewYork.
3. Professor of Agricultural and Biological Chemistry, Cbemi t and Assistant in
Biochemistry, respectively, De~artment of i~ricultural C mistry, Oregon
State College.
4. Published as Oregon Agricultural Ex~eriment Station .usce laneous Paper 1101.
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